Abstract

A shuttle-like mechanism of electron transport through a single level vibrating quantum dot is considered in the regime of strong electromechanical coupling. It is shown that the increment of shuttle instability is a nonmonotonic function of the driving voltage. The interplay of two oppositively acting effects—vibron-assisted electron tunneling and polaronic blockade—results in oscillations of the increment on the energy scale of vibron energy.

The authors thank S.I. Kulinich for valuable discussions. This work was supported in part by the Swedish VR and SSF, by the Faculty of Science at the University of Gothenburg through the “Nanoparticle” Research Platform, and by the grant “Effects of electronic, magnetic and elastic properties in strongly inhomogeneous nanostructures” provided by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. I.V.K. thanks the Department of Physics at the University of Gothenburg for hospitality.